


eyes on you

by Kammy



Series: TG Femslash Week [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/F, Rare Pairings, Tokyo Ghoul Femslash Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kammy/pseuds/Kammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kimi used to look at Touka, and nothing else. But when Anteiku burns and Nishiki leaves, she reaches out.</p><p>This ends up being more important than either of them could have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eyes on you

**Author's Note:**

> For TG Femslash Week! There are actually more chapters to this that I had planned, but I have not written them yet. Oops. I hope to finish more of this fic by the end of the week.

Kimi used to look at Touka, and nothing else.

It was probably because Touka was beautiful. But no, not just that. Touka wasn’t only beautiful, she was unreal. When Kimi looked at her, she felt like what she was seeing was a paper façade, delicate and fragile and ready to be torn away at any moment to reveal something terrible and otherworldly.

Touka didn’t act different from a human girl, from what Kimi saw. Not in the glimpses Kimi saw of her at Anteiku. Her eyes were blue. Her smile was polite. She bowed courteously to the customers. And it wasn’t as though the human-like parts of her had to be a lie—they weren’t. There was a part of the girl that, Kimi thought, was probably not too different from the sort of girl Kimi had been. But perhaps, that made her even stranger in Kimi’s eyes.

Because she was a girl who bowed to the customers at Anteiku and smiled politely—who had grumbled something about teachers that reminded Kimi of all the ways she had complained in high school—and also a killer.

Kimi felt like she could see under it, though, see a blood-red iris and sclera of black. See the girl who flew about the room, leaping like an animal, flying like one. See that bright, beautiful wing that shimmered like something torn right out of a fairy tale.

Touka had wanted to kill her that night. But Kimi didn’t mind. Ghouls—she couldn’t say she understood them, but from what she’d learned from Nishiki they were always afraid, always ready to kill. And if that was what the world made them, then how could she judge?

She thought about how beautifully unreal Touka was, instead.

Look, but nothing else. Even when her eyes were blue and she was smiling at the customers, she seemed transparent to Kimi. Too lovely to reach out to. Unreal.

But then, Anteiku had burned.

Then, Nishiki had vanished with a heartfelt kiss and a goodbye—no explanation.

Then, Kimi had been all alone again.

It was then, catching a glimpse of Touka in the corner of her eye—still a vision, still some flash of transient, deadly allure—that Kimi decided to act.

She reached out, and grabbed Touka by the arm.

“Wait!” she said. “Kirishima—!”

Kimi had felt her knees go weak for a moment. Touka’s wrist was steely cold in Kimi’s hand, and she jerked her head away at the touch. Kimi remembered that this girl had been ready to kill her before, and she shivered.

But Touka didn’t lash out. She didn’t even pull away while Kimi stuttered out something about Nishiki. She just stayed, head turned away, face hidden by her unruly hair.

When she’d looked up, Kimi could see the veins in her eyes, inflamed with crying.

“I don’t know where anyone is,” Touka said, coldly. “I don’t even know where to go.”

Then—well after looking at that face, there really wasn’t anything else Kimi could do, was there?

“Come home with me,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

Without thinking about it, she squeezed Touka’s hand.

* * *

 

 

It was odd to see Touka in Kimi’s dingy apartment. Kimi hated the place. She wasn’t any good at cleaning or decorating, so the place managed to be messy and bare at the same time. Kimi found herself picking up trash as she went along.

“Hold on,” she murmured. “I’m sorry for the mess.”

Touka didn’t say anything. Kimi kept cleaning frantically.

“You can sleep on the bed,” she told Touka. “Do you have anything that you need to go get?”

Touka shook her head.

“Okay, well then,” Kimi said. “We need to get you some things. Toothbrush, definitely. Unless you want to use Nishi’s?”

Touka scrunched her face. “Gross,” she said.

Kimi laughed. “Okay. We’ll have to get you a new toothbrush then. Um, you can use my pajamas, if that’s okay with you.”

Touka nodded, her expression turning blank again. Kimi couldn’t quite catch her gaze. Touka didn’t even seem to be looking at her. She didn’t turn up her nose at the mess she was in. Nishiki had said she was the sort to make snide comments and get angry—was this silence unusual then? How bad did that make things?

Kimi looked at her and realized that this was a girl who had just lost—probably everything. She didn’t know much about Touka’s life. It would have been rude to ask Nishiki for details. But _“I don’t know where anyone is”_ made it sound like if she’d had a family, they were all gone now. Dead, or disappeared into nooks and crannies that Touka couldn’t follow.

Touka was a child. Strange as it was to think it, Kimi could see it. Kimi didn’t think of herself as much of a motherly type—she wasn’t unfeminine, but she didn’t have that sort of touch to her that she remembered from her mother. All Kimi could think about was her medical studies—everything about psychology and bedside manner and handling trauma victims.

It would be unwise, she decided, to ask any questions as this point.

Would it also be unwise to leave her alone at the moment? Kimi decided it wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

“I’ll go out and get your toothbrush later,” she said. “I’m going to clean up here a little first. Make yourself at home. There’s not much here, really, but if you like, you can watch a movie. There are books, too, do you like to read? Would you mind if I put on some music?”

Touka shrugged.

Kimi set about cleaning the apartment, putting on music, trying to do her best to make sure the place wasn’t too quiet. She asked Touka few things—nothing big, just about things that would make her comfortable. Touka didn’t respond with much more than a few grunts at a time.

When Kimi went out later, making a quick run to the convenience store, she almost expected Touka to be gone when she came back. She wasn’t. Instead, she had changed into her pajamas and was lying in bed. Her eyes were open.

“Touka? How are you feeling?”

But Touka didn’t answer. She didn’t even blink. She wasn’t looking at Kimi, she didn’t even seem to see anything in the apartment. Instead, she was staring into another world.

* * *

 

Touka stayed a few days. She got more energetic, though not quite in a positive way. Kimi watched as she started pacing around the place a lot, fiddling with things, breaking some others on accident. Kimi decided to be patient.

When Touka first talked, really talked, she sounded accusatory. “How long are you going to wait before you ask your fucking questions?”

Kimi gulped. Well, ouch. “What do you mean?”

Touka didn’t even grace this with a coherent explanation, but just made an angry, muffled groan. It reminded Kimi of a teenager having a bit of a fit—but that’s what Touka was, wasn’t she? It was so easy for Kimi to forget.

“You’re always talking about Nishiki,” Touka said. “Seriously. Every other time your mouth opens.”

Kimi laughed, unsure at how this was connected to Touka’s question from before. “Well, you already said that you didn’t know where he was.”

“You don’t think I was lying?”

Kimi blinked. “Were you?”

Touka scowled. “No. I don’t know where that asshole went.”

Kimi shrugged. “That’s fine.”

Touka jammed her hands in her pocket and clenched her jaw, clearly dissatisfied. She didn’t say anything for a moment, pacing around instead again. “So what are you doing this for?” she asked eventually.

“Huh?”

At the moment Kimi was stitching a button back on her coat—she thought it had to be pretty obvious why she was doing that. She looked down at her coat, and then up to Touka.

“Not that,” Touka scowled. “I mean… this…”

Kimi blinked. Touka swallowed.

“I mean, why are you letting me…” She didn’t finish her sentence.

“Oh,” Kimi said. “Well, to help you out. I mean, all of you at Anteiku… you were good for Nishiki, you know. I would never have left but—the idea of him going around and killing people was a little hard, at times. When he was working with all of you there, being peaceful, bringing home those—um—packages, it made me feel better.”

Touka was staring right at her. It was the first time, Kimi thought, that Touka had really looked right into her eyes, listening instead of brushing off her glance and fading into some other world. Kimi gulped.

The focus of Touka’s eyes reminded her of that moment when their eyes had met in the chapel, right when Touka had been ready to kill her. Kimi felt a sort of swoop in her chest.

“Anyway,” Kimi said. “He’d be really upset if you didn’t have anywhere to go. Especially if I could have given you a place.”

“Huh,” Touka said. She didn’t sound too convinced.

“No, really!” she said. “He spoke about you sometimes. He didn’t—well, you know what he’s like. He’s not exactly full of nice things to say and he’s rather sharp-tongued. But still, I could tell he liked you. He wanted the best for all of you there.”

Touka’s eyes got a little misty. Her lip trembled a little. Oh no, Kimi felt herself panicking. Their first real conversation and this is what happened. “Don’t—” she started to say, not knowing how she’d end it.

Touka Turned away. “Whatever,” she mumbled, voice a little rough. “Hope the asshole’s not dead, I guess.”

There wasn’t a lot of room in the apartment to avoid people in. But Touka somehow managed, walking off into the corner of the living room, probably, leaving Kimi to wonder if she’d done anything wrong or if this was a natural part of the grieving process.

* * *

 

The next few days, Touka started talking more. It was normally rather mundane things. She complained about the fridge door that never closed properly, about the ceiling fan that made a tiny (unnoticeable to Kimi’s ears) scraping noise whenever it was turned on. She groused at tiny things around the apartment, perpetually dissatisfied, always looking like she was ready to murder each inanimate object as though it were the source of all suffering in the world.

Kimi decided it was a form of coping, distracting herself with her annoyance toward the smaller things. So she didn’t mind when Touka started to direct that annoyance at her.

“Yeah, I know Nishiki liked Blondy. You said that,” Touka wrinkled her nose. “It’s literally the tenth time you’ve mentioned it.”

“Oh,” Kimi said, trying not to be too dismayed.

“Just because that asshole liked it doesn’t mean I do. It’s shitty coffee. Nishiki has shit taste for a ghoul, I say. Fuck, can we get some other brand?”

One day, Kimi came home from her classes to find Touka in the middle of the living room, staring down at the ceiling fan, the one that made the noise she hated so much. Yes, staring _down_ at it. It was lying in a sad clump on the floor.

“Did you, um, do that?” Kimi asked.

Touka gave a grunt that Kimi thought was supposed to be sarcastically good natured. “No, obviously it was the _wind.”_

Kimi sighed. “The landlord won’t like this.”

Touka didn’t say anything. Kimi decided not to fill the silence at the moment, and went to pick up the pieces of the fan. Maybe it was most salvageable. Maybe she didn’t have to pay too much.

When she had sorted out the rubble, she found Touka slumped on the bed.

“It’s okay,” Kimi told her.

Touka shrugged.

“I rented a movie. Would you like to watch it with me?”

Touka shook her head. “No thanks.” Her tone was wearily polite.

That night, she was as silent as the first

The next morning, Touka was gone.

* * *

 

Touka had never left the apartment before her disappearance. Kimi hadn’t questioned her as to why. She’d assumed that Touka need to keep her face hidden for a while, in case anyone was looking for the other ghouls at Anteiku.

So when Kimi found her apartment empty that morning, she had a feeling it was for good.

She was right. Touka didn’t return. Still, it was about a week before Kimi accepted it. She found herself thinking that maybe Touka had just gone for a little while, and that she would be back. Or that she would change her mind about leaving.

She hoped Touka would come back—Kimi realized this sitting up at night, a week later. She hoped it for her own sake.

Touka didn’t seem to like her very much. She wasn’t friendly. They hadn’t even done much together. But having her around had eased the loneliness of Nishiki not being there. Having her around meant there was someone listening to her as she prattled on to fill the silence, someone to do things for. Having her around meant that she was _helping_ another person, that she wasn’t entirely worthless.

And without that, Kimi had to look at herself.

She didn’t have any friends. She had never had admirers before Nishiki. Once, she had had her family. She had had a loving mother and a good father and she had decided to go to medical school to make them proud. She had had brothers that yelled and roughhoused and joked and filled the silence. But then they had all died, and then Kimi had nothing— _was_ nothing.

Nishiki had made her something again. Handsome, talented, whip-smart, and somehow he had chosen her when he could have had any girl in his class. She didn’t really know why. She was plain and boring. She had been an empty shell, but Nishiki had filled her with life and laughter and love—and then he left.

She had been clinging to Touka, she realized. She had _needed_ Touka. Maybe that was unfair of her.

Kimi felt tears well up under her eyelashes that night as she fell asleep.

She needed to let go.

* * *

 

She hadn’t thought it would happen, but she still couldn’t say she was surprised when the CCG officers arrived. It was something she should have been expecting, maybe even something she had been expecting deep down, even if her consciousness wasn’t sharp enough to think it.

She was such a stupid girl.

“There was a reported sighting of a ghoul leaving your apartment,” he said. “We suspect this ghoul is S-Ranked Rabbit.”

“Oh,” Kimi said faintly.

“And there are reports of you being associated with another ghoul. Nishio Nishiki. A student attending Kamii University under what we recently discovered to be an alias.”

Kimi felt her knees go weak as the officer search her apartment. There was coffee—so much coffee. And in the freezer—no, but surely Touka had eaten that. Kimi had told her it was there when she needed to eat.

When they pulled out the brown package and opened it, Kimi felt her stomach shrivel inside of her.

“We’re going to have to ask you to come with us, ma’am,” she could hear them say faintly.

She asked herself this in the police car, on the way to the station. It couldn’t be legal. She had never exactly looked up what it took to be convicted of aiding a ghoul—or what the penalty was. Surely they couldn’t convict her on so little, right?

That was what she asked herself in the police car. By the time they had locked her in a cell at the police station, she started to ask another question.

_Do they even care?_

She suspected they didn’t. That they didn’t need much evidence to harass her and hope for a confession. Or to simply bully someone who was the lover of a ghoul—whether they had knowledge of it or not.

During the interrogation, they told her she could get the death penalty for this. “Treason against Humanity” it was called. With extenuating circumstances or some info from her about a ghoul’s whereabouts, she could get life imprisonment instead.

“I’d rather die,” she’d said.

And thinking about it in the cell, trembling, heart quivering with the thought, she still knew it wasn’t a lie. If she died here, for this, then she’d be dying for love. And that comforted her. Because she knew Nishiki was worth it. Their time together was worth it.

And it wasn’t as though she had anything else to live for anyway.

* * *

 

She dreamed that night about him. He came to rescue her. She didn’t see the rescue in her dreams, she just heard the voice: “I won’t let you die here.” And then she felt his arms wrap around her, and he was on top of her, encompassing her with his warmth, and they were making love again just like that had on—

—there was a crack.

Kimi jumped, scrambling, falling out of the cot in the jail cell. Something had sliced through the bars. It was dark, and she was barely awake, so she only saw a blur, a flash of red.

“Nishiki!” she cried.

But no, it wasn’t him. Instead, it was a flare, a single wing of fire glistening in the dark. In the dim light, Kimi found herself staring into two red irises, and sclera of black. Like in the chapel, just like in the chapel—a dream, a vision of an angel.

“Human prisons are kind of pathetic, huh?” Touka said. “We need to go.”

Kimi’s heart fluttered like a bird, but she held out her hand. Touka grabbed it.

* * *

 

It was amazing that they escaped. It really was.

“The CCG weren’t even around,” Touka said. “They just dropped you off and left you there without a guard or anything. I don’t think they were expecting a ghoul to make a break-in. I don’t think they realized we were capable of, y’know.”

Of caring, Touka didn’t say. But Kimi nodded.

The sewers stank. They smelled so bad that Kimi felt like fainting, especially since she hadn’t eaten in so long. But they were large and there were many places to hide that CCG members wouldn’t find—according to Touka. Or at least, they wouldn’t bother, not for someone as small-time as the Rabbit, not after they had lost so many investigators already. So traipsing through there was necessary.

And anyway, Touka held her hand firmly, supporting her and guiding her, albeit a bit roughly at times.

“We, um. We need to get new identities. And disguises. Somehow,” Touka said. “But I think if we go to a ward that’s far enough away, we won’t be bothered.”

“Mm-hm,” Kimi said, still a bit dizzy.

They kept walking for a while. Then, there was a bit of a fork in the pathways, and they stopped. Touka was ahead of her—she’d practically been dragging Kimi behind her the entire time. Now, as she stopped, Kimi could make out only a faint outline of her face, washed out in the dismal sewer lighting. Touka’s hand slackened around hers.

“Touka?” she asked.

Touka flinched. “I don’t know where to go.”

“You’re lost?”

Touka shook her head. “No. I know where each place goes.”

She paused. Kimi could make out a twitch on her face, a frown.

“I just don’t know where to go,” Touka said, voice rough. “Yomo—he left a while back. Before I met you. He said to wait for him and then he’d have a place to go. But he didn’t come back and then some investigators were snooping around and I had to leave. And then I was waiting for him to call or something, because he had my number and I had texted to tell him what happened but—”

Touka choked, cutting herself off. Kimi could suddenly feel the tremors in her arm through her touch.

“I don’t know what to do,” Touka was crying. But only barely. Kimi heard her sniffle and her voice wavering stubbornly, a wave of sobbing waiting to happen. She saw Touka wipe her face with her free hand—wiping away tears.

“Touka,” Kimi said softly.

Touka only choked again, her shoulder hunching a bit. Kimi squeezed her hand.

“Touka, thank you for saving me.”

It sounded like Touka had been wounded, as though Kimi’s words had slid right through her ribs like a tiny, sharp knife. She took a moment, sniffling quietly, coughing her way through sobs held deep in her chest. Then, she stood up straight.

“Okay,” Touka said. “I guess we’ll figure this out.”

* * *

 

When they were out of the sewers, lying on some dusty but welcome mattress in the back of some shop that belonged to a friend of the manager at Anteiku, they talked. They laughed, more with relief than because anything was funny, Touka saying something about how disgusting she was, covered in all that sewer gunk.

“You’re still beautiful,” Kimi said.

Touka laughed. It sounded awkward. “Uh, not really.”

“Yes,” Kimi said, a little too tired to care about saying things the right way. “I always thought you were beautiful.”

“Hm,” Touka grunted, not sounding convinced.

“You really are. You just have that quality to you. A special quality, an aura like you’re the important character in a story. Nishiki was like that,” Kimi said, her words running together. “There’s just—this kind of inhuman quality you have. Maybe it’s a ghoul thing?”

Touka looked at her, eyes glistening in the morning light coming through the shutters. Kimi found her insides quivering at her glance. They were close right now, maybe a little too close.

“Nah,” Touka said. “It’s not that. You probably just have a fetish.”

Kimi spluttered, heat rising to her face, and Touka laughed. Kimi was about to defend herself, but then Touka leaned in, tiredly bumping her head on Kimi’s collarbones.

“Thanks for everything,” she mumbled. “Now. Sleep.”

Kimi looked at her for a moment. Touka’s eyes were closed, and a smile wafted across her lips. Kimi closed her eyes as well, and murmured a goodnight.

Like that, they fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued! For more femslash similar to this, visit http://tg-femslash-week.tumblr.com/
> 
> And please contribute if you can! It's never too late to participate, and no amount of work is too little!


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